UFC on ESPN+ 18 Betting Tips, Picks and Predictions

September has been a frustrating month so far because we’re down around 1 unit on prefight bets. This is extra annoying because my two most confident bets of the month have gone up in flames under weird circumstances. First of all our bet on Marvin Vettori ended up being canceled when his fight against Andrew Sanchez fell through. Then we had to get a refund for our Jeremy Stephens bet after his fight against Yair Rodriguez ended in a no-contest due to an accidental eye poke.

On paper, September was looking like a bad month for prefight betting, and it certainly has not disappointed so far. Hopefully, we can end the month with a profit by earning some decent cash at UFC Copenhagen this weekend. We also have two Bellator events this weekend to dig into. Hopefully, we can find at least a few rock-solid bets on the 3 major MMA events that take place on Friday and Saturday.

We’ve made about 5 units of profit this month in Live Betting, but it feels like a loss after a horrendous run of bad luck over the last couple of months. This month has been infuriating for Live Betting as we’ve taken two disgusting losses on Edson Barboza and Brandon Moreno in a swing that’s worth just short of 10 units. Anybody with eyeballs would have scored both those fights for Barboza and Moreno, so our run of bad luck continues to get worse.

The positive to take from all this is that we are consistently getting our money into strong positions and we’re almost always on the right side of our Live bets. Sooner or later the bad judging will start to calm down, and we’ll go on another one of our Monster winning streaks!

Alen Amedovski vs John Phillips Betting Tip and Prediction

John Phillips’ nickname is “The White Mike Tyson,” and on the most basic of levels, that’s the reason why we are going to bet against him this weekend at UFC Copenhagen.

In 2019; you cannot expect to survive in the UFC unless you have some form of takedown defense and some form of a ground game. Phillips’ nickname of The White Mike Tyson tells you all you need to know about his fighting style. He simply cannot defend a takedown, and he is less than White Belt level on the ground. He has had almost 30 pro fights in his career and he has never shown signs of evolving into a more complete Mixed Martial Artist.

Alen Amedovski is primarily a striker, but he did show flashes of grappling in one of his first MMA fights waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy back in 2015. You can take a look at it here:

Amedovski’s performance in that fight certainly wasn’t perfect. He repeatedly gave up position and made technical errors, but even the level of grappling he showed back in 2015 will be enough to take Phillips down and dominate him on the ground.

Since that fight Amedovski has been training full time in Italy with UFC legend, Alessio Sakara. His offensive wrestling and ground game should have improved considerably since that fight back in 2015, but even if it hasn’t, he should still be able to ragdoll Phillips to the ground and do whatever he wants to him.

Standing up this fight is a bit more difficult to predict because there’s not too much footage available on Amedovski’s striking. What we do know is that he’s very aggressive and hits like a truck. He carries legit 1 shot KO power in every strike:

Obviously a guy with a nickname like “The White Mike Tyson” is going to have decent Boxing and power in his hands, but that’s the only threat that Phillips brings to the table. He’s very one dimensional. He doesn’t throw kicks. He has no clinch game, and he can’t grapple.

On the ground, Amedovski has a giant advantage over John Phillips. Unfortunately, because of the limited footage available on him over the last few years, we don’t know how willing he is going to be to take this fight to the ground, but his grappling advantages alone mean that we simply have to cap him at least 60% here.

Standing up the fight is much more difficult to call, because again there’s limited footage available on Amedovski, although it is worth noting that it’s possible he’s also a better striker than Phillips.

At roughly even money this is an absolute no brainer of a bet. Amedovski has a gigantic advantage when it comes to grappling, and it’s also possible that he is the superior striker. Maybe Phillips has an advantage striking, but like many of his fights, he won’t get a chance to exercise that advantage if his opponent fights smart and puts him on his back.

Reasons for betting on Alen Amedovski

Brandon Davis vs Giga Chikadze Betting Tip and Prediction

Betting on Brandon Davis to beat Giga Chikadze is risky because there’s not much recent MMA footage available on Chikadze. The only recent footage we have is his 2018 appearance on Dana White’s Contender Series. I recommend that you click here to watch that fight so that you can see exactly why I feel Davis is a decent bet at the current odds.

If you’ve been one of my members for a while, you’ll know that MMA records don’t usually mean anything to me because fights are fought in a cage, not on paper. But this is one of those rare occasions where a Win / Loss record must weigh into our decision making when capping this fight because my Spidey senses started to tingle when I saw Chikadze’s record. His record looks really suspicious because he’s only ever fought an opponent with a winning record one time in his entire 9 fight career and he actually lost that fight. Take a look and see for yourself. He has only fought an extremely low level of opponent throughout his career:

Chikadze is a Glory Kickboxer, but his striking didn’t exactly blow me away when I watched him compete on Dana White’s Contender Series. He looked quite passive, so there’s a good chance that Davis outworks him if the fight stays standing. Davis has a base in Muay Thai, and he’s very strong in the clinch. He also has cardio to fight at a high pace for 3 rounds, and he has an amazing chin. It’s very possible that he could outstrike Chikadze, despite Chikadze’s Kickboxing pedigree.

On the ground is where Davis will have a huge advantage. When Davis came into the UFC, he was purely a striker, but in his last two fights, we have seen him start to go to his wrestling in order to mix things up and put his stamp on rounds. Chikadze has really bad takedown defense and a low-level ground game. If Davis starts to use his grappling, he should be able to win easily.

We also have to take into consideration the fact that Chikadze is making his UFC debut and a massive percentage of fighters lose their first fight in the UFC. This will also be a huge step up in competition for him. Davis is by far the toughest guy that he has ever fought.

After a rough start to his UFC career, Davis recently dropped from Bantamweight to Featherweight. The weight cut to 135 was too brutal for him, though, and he didn’t look good at all in his last two fights. The good news is that Davis is now moving back up to 145 for this fight against Chikadze.

I cap Davis at around 65% to 70% here because this is Chikadze’s debut, he’s only fought a low level of opponent up until this point in his career, and his takedown defense and ground game is very poor. It’s also very possible that Davis may have an advantage if this fight stays standing. This bet carries extra risk because there’s not much recent MMA footage available on Chikadze, but from what I’ve seen Davis stands a great chance of winning. At the current odds, I am happy to take a small gamble on Davis.

Reasons for betting on Brandon Davis

Alessio Di Chirico vs Makhmud Muradov Betting Tip and Prediction

Before researching this fight, I was very interested in how Makhmud Muradov would look because he is the only MMA fighter currently signed to Floyd Mayweather’s TMT stable of athletes.

This is an important detail to pay attention to because Mayweather is a smart businessman who wouldn’t risk his reputation or brand by getting behind someone who couldn’t live up to the hype. I’ve read many investment books over the years, and a common theme is “Always follow the money.” This means that if you see a successful Investor, Invest in a new technology or business; then you should probably consider getting involved too.

Mayweather is loose with his cash when it comes to Girls, Cars, and Clothes, but he’s an intelligent guy who isn’t loose when it comes to his businesses or brands. For him to sign Muradov, there’s likely something special there…

Within just a few minutes of watching Muradov, you can tell that he’s good. He’s a strong offensive wrestler with a decent ground game and technical striking. He has fast hands, vicious combinations, and devastating head kicks. He also does a great job of landing fight-ending strikes in close proximity or on the exit from the clinch position. After watching Muradov’s last 4 fights, I believe he’s significantly better than Di Chirico in every single aspect of MMA.

Di Chirico is one of those guys that is just very average at everything. He’s not the most technical striker, doesn’t have much power in his hands, and he’s also not a very strong grappler. He also has bad cardio and bad fight IQ. Di Chirico’s main weakness is his passive style of fighting. He lacks urgency and struggles to put his stamp on rounds.

This is a great stylistic matchup for Muradov because he’s better than Di Chirico everywhere. Di Chirico’s passive fighting style also means that Muradov will have time to grow into the fight and get comfortable competing in his UFC debut.

From a technical point of view, this is an excellent fight for Muradov, but there are a couple of X-Factors which add additional risk to this bet. The first is that this is Muradov’s UFC debut and a lot of fighters lose their debut because they struggle with the pressure of fighting under the bright lights of the UFC for the first time.

The second risk factor is that Muradov will be taking this fight on less than 2 weeks notice. It is, however, worth noting that I am not too concerned about this because he currently looks in great shape. This Instagram post was published very recently:

As you can see, Muradov looks in fantastic shape. He also recently posted that he broke his record for Hill sprint times which also indicates that he’s currently in great shape:

The above message was posted just last week and translates to:

Today I broke my record – 10x uphill sprints with 20kg vest ? ?‍♂. Nothing is impossible; it is up to you. Don’t postpone until tomorrow, start today, right now ☝ Thank you @xiaomiczech for the smart bracelet that helps me prepare

The third and final risk factor is that we have not seen Muradov fight under USADA before although it’s worth noting that he has taken this fight on short notice, so USADA drug testing is unlikely to impact him until his next fight.

It’s always risky betting on a fighter making their UFC debut, but the skill gap between Muradov and Di Chirico looks to be substantial, so I am happy to take a gamble here at reasonably good odds.

Reasons for betting on Makhmud Muradov